pentagon acquisition reform

The Strategic Impact of F-16s Built in India By Danny Lam, Second Line of Defense: “The F-16 deal for India – if it goes through – has the potential to become a game changer for not just the Indian subcontinent, but also for Southeast Asia and the Middle East. ”

Thomas Donnelly writes: It’s not just the terror war that will continue but a much larger and more important conflict for which we remain unprepared. Even beyond the tactical, operational, and strategic challenges the Middle East war presents, it begs for domestic political leadership. – Hoover Institution’s Defining Ideas

Creating an Invincible MilitaryBy David Leffler, RealClearDefense: “George Will states in his editorial, “The traditional U.S. approach to warfare – dominance achieved by mass of force produced by the nation’s industrial might – is of limited relevance … changing the trajectory of military thinking, and hence procurement often requires changing a service’s viscous culture.”​

The U.S. Army’s Next Big 5 Must Be Capabilities, Not New Platforms​By Andrew Hunter & Rhys McCormick, Defense One: “One of the most confounding discussions in defense circles these days is how to go about modernizing the Army. Almost everyone supports it in principle, but several critical questions remain: What should the future of the Army be, why is that Army needed, how and when should we build it, and how can we afford it?”

James Price writes: Some say the US can’t afford to upgrade the force with new bombers, but with advances in technology, the proliferation of modern A2/AD defenses and a series of wide ranging and dangerous adversaries, the US can’t afford not to modernize its bomber force….Today’s modern stealth bombers with the addition of the next generation B-21s (in sufficient numbers) will demonstrate that the US serious about deterrence and is ready, survivable and willing to go to war. – The National Interest

Bryan McGrath writes: The President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Navy have difficult choices to make about the size and shape of the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Navy. Very smart people are working hard to reach these determinations. It is essential that they understand the nature of the “capacity v. capability” argument when it comes to American Seapower and the U.S. Navy. Specifically, that they do not make the mistake of assuming that the relative weight of capacity and capability required of the U.S. Navy for the conduct of war is the same as that required to deter it. In this question, the Navy is different, and size matters. – Real Clear Defense

Weekly Recon – Multi-Domain Updates By Blake Baiers, RealClearDefense: “A new age of close-air-support is on the horizon, and it is taking shape in the New Mexico desert. This week Sierra Nevada’s A-29 Super Tucano and Textron Industries AT-6 Wolverine were in the air, being flown by U.S. Air Force pilots that will be putting the planes through a series of tests to evaluate their capabilities as close-air-support platforms as part of the OA-X experiment, which is set to begin next month ... ”

Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense and Acquisition Reform By Baker Spring, RealClearDefense: “Defense policy leaders both in Congress and the Department of Defense have come to recognize that the existing acquisition process is too complicated and cumbersome. With new threats on the horizon and a new Administration committed to devoting more resources to critical defense capabilities, now is the time for lawmakers to do something about it.

It’s Time to End the Tyranny of Ends, Ways, and Means By Joseph Hammond, RealClearDefense: “ It is convenient and concise, short enough to fit cleanly onto a PowerPoint slide and clear enough to be expressed as an actual mathematical equation: ends + ways + means = strategy (less residual risk).”

Team America Versus JihadFrom The National Interest: "The U.S and its allies have been fighting terrorists and insurgents for almost 16 years. America has the best-equipped, most-seasoned, and best-led forces in its history. The forces of Team America have won a number of battles, conducted a host of strikes, and killed or captured many terrorists, including Osama bin Laden. Yet there are more murderous Islamist groups around the globe today than there were on 11 September 2001, and there is a strategic stalemate in Afghanistan. Team America is adept and upbeat about doing lethal actions to kill and capture militants. But, Team America does not have a viable strategy."

Advancing Intelligence Analysis for the Multi-Domain Battlefield By Chris Parrett & Tom Pike, Small Wars Journal: “In the first paragraph of Carl Von Clausewitz’s seminal work On War he writes …[in war] “more than elsewhere the part and the whole must be always be thought of together (Paret 1976, p. 75).” His words, over a hundred years before the term Complexity theory was coined echoes the common description of complex adaptive systems; “the whole is more than the sum of the parts (Miller and Page 2007).” Complex or non-linear systems have confounded analysis, and often were avoided by science due to their intractability.”

Navy Must Continue Innovating in Administration, Manpower, and Personnel By Paul Pierce, U.S. Naval Institute: “The Navy is facing unprecedented challenges in the manpower and personnel arena. Among the challenges are a shrinking fiscal environment, adapting to the expectations and changing perspective brought into the Navy by “millennial” Sailors, the need for speed and precision in matching people to job vacancies (called “billets”), the reality that maintaining manpower and personnel-related legacy information technology (IT) systems impedes strategic IT investment, and the reality that the cost of manpower is the largest component of the Navy budget.” ​

Contemporary American Military Innovation By Carlton G. Haelig, Small Wars Journal: “The United States military continues to focus on planning and innovating to fight and win the next major war. The military, however, has been engaged in near constant low-intensity conflicts (LICs) for the better part of twenty years.”

Evolution of the Marine Corps UAS Capabilities By Robbin Laird, Second Line of Defense: “We are looking to build airborne early warning capability, and air to air capability into MUX, something that you don’t find in Reaper. We want an expeditionary, shipboard capability. We are building a digital interoperable network and we want the MUX to be a node in that digital network.”

How China's Navy Is Preparing to Fight in the 'Far Seas' By Ryan Martinson & Katsuya Yamamoto, The National Interest: “On June 28, the Chinese navy launched the first of a formidable new class of warship. At over twelve thousand tons and bristling with sensors and weapons, the Type 055 destroyer is among the most advanced surface combatants in the world. When completed, it will join the world’s fastest-growing fleet, a service that commissioned twenty-three new surface ships in 2016 alone, compared with just six for the U.S. Navy and zero for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Clearly some great fear or ambition hastens China’s investment in sea power.”

World Naval Developments —China's Second Aircraft Carrier By Norman Friedman, Proceedings Magazine: “The new ship appears to be a modified version of the first Chinese carrier Liaoning, herself a much-modified half-sister of the Russian Kuznetsov. The most significant change is a considerably enlarged hangar.”

Submarine Industrial Base Can Maintain 2-Attack Boat Construction RateBy Megan Eckstein, USNI News: “The Navy has confirmed that its submarine industrial base can continue building two Virginia-class attack submarines a year even while adding the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine to its workload, giving a key congressman confidence in the House’s plan to boost submarine procurement in the coming years.”

Unstealthing Russian and Chinese Submarines By Zachary Keck, National Interest: “DARPA’s interest in ASW is also a reflection of emerging technologies that are making even the quietest submarines increasingly vulnerable to detection, something that Bryan Clark outlined in a 2015 report for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.”

Fixing the Way the Army Trains for Urban Warfare By Zachary Griffiths, Modern War Institute: “The United States Army already trains soldiers in urban warfare, but the training is uneven. According to the Range Facility Management Support System, Fort Bragg hosts five mock villages while Fort Bliss has none. Likewise, the 10th Mountain Division runs its own urban warfare course, while other units focus on jungle, arctic, or desert training. At a fraction of the cost of a wholesale revolutionary approach, evolutionary reform of current training practices would smooth out these discrepancies, create a standardized program of urban warfare training across the Army, and ultimately develop a more “urban competent” force.”

The City Is the Battlefield of the FutureFrom The Wall Street Journal: "U.S. commanders ought to imagine how they would handle a similar environment. Future American conflicts will not be waged in the caves or craggy mountaintops of Afghanistan, much less the open deserts of Iraq or the jungles of Vietnam. They will be fought in cities—dense, often overpopulated and full of obstacles: labyrinthine apartment blocks, concealed tunnels, panicking civilians. The enemy will be highly networked and integrated into his surroundings. America’s next war will be the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu on steroids"

Adapting in Stride: Fighting Tomorrow’s Battle Today By Eric Winkofsky, Josh Nunn, Pete Marks, Richard Robinson and Miguel Cruz, War on the Rocks: “Since 2014, the Marines of Ripper have been adapting and, in the process, illuminating the changing character of war. Their hybrid logistics, combined-arms coordination, and commercial communication initiatives make them more adaptable and resilient to enemy tactics, techniques and procedures. Whether facing Islamic State today or near peer adversaries in the future, the Marine Corps writ large should implement these low-cost, low-risk changes to sustain a comparative advantage in the 21st century battlespace.”

Russian Capabilities in Electronic Warfare: Plans, Achievements and ExpectationsFrom The Jamestown Foundation: “Russia’s Radio-Electronic Technologies Group (KRET), part of the state-owned high-technology corporation Rostec, announced on June 10 that “work on a new gadget that can imitate a group of jets, rockets or a massive missile attack” has entered the final stage. Representatives of KRET described this as a “revolution in EW [electronic warfare]” (TASS, June 10). The spoofing device is merely one of several notable new EW products being produced by the Russians.” ​

The Nuclear Posture Review, Bomber Capability, and Extended Deterrence By Mark B. Schneider, RealClearDefense: “Today, the release of a weapon within range of its intended target, even from a stealth aircraft, does not guarantee that the weapon will actually reach its target. The U.S. Navy is now testing a stealthy Norwegian conventional cruise missile, designed against “heavily armed Russia,” “which performs “evasive maneuvers to counter terminal defense weapons.””

Rethink Mine CountermeasuresBy Scott Savitz, Proceedings Magazine: “Naval mine countermeasures (MCM) face major challenges. Traditional MCM platforms, such as the wood-and-fiberglass Avenger (MCM-1)-class ships, are in the process of being decommissioned. Their intended replacements, the littoral combat ships (LCS) and their associated mine warfare mission modules, have been delayed and face various development issues.1 Despite efforts to reduce the timelines, costs, and risks associated with MCM operations, mines remain cost-imposing weapons that can deny access for protracted periods or inflict unacceptable losses on the U.S. Navy.”​

Three "Warhacks" for Urban CombatBy John Spencer, Modern War Institute: “The Army does not have a school for learning how to operate in dense urban terrain. Beyond simply training soldiers for such a complex setting, one of the reasons the Army should establish such a school is to create a laboratory for innovation. Units in an urban warfare school, trying to solve this challenging environment’s unique tactical and operational problems, could spawn a wide range of new solutions across the DOTMILPF-P spectrum (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities, and Policy).”

U.S., CHINA: China's Secret Weapon Against America By Zachary Keck, The National Interest: “Many Americans have failed to grapple with the magnitude of China's rise, confident that Beijing will go ultimately go the way of the Soviet Union or Japan in the 1980s.”

Hit-to-Kill: The Ultimate Missile Defense ChallengeFrom CSIS Missile Defense Project: “After a ballistic missile launches, its engines burn hot and can be detected by infrared satellites. Outside the Earth's atmosphere, the missile engines burn out and it reaches its peak velocity. At this point, the missile's payload, a warhead, usually separates from the rest of the body. The warhead is also accompanied by the flying junk pile of debris created by launching a missile as well as by decoys or other countermeasures designed to complicate the missile defense job. All of these objects move together through space as part of a threat cloud. So for a missile defense system to successfully destroy the warhead, its various sensors must first discriminate it from among the various other parts of the cloud.” ​

The U.S. Military's 5 Worst Defeats EverBy James Carafano, The National Interest: “George Washington's effort to hold off the British Invasion of New York could not have gone worse. Luckily, the Continental Army avoided complete annihilation by slipping across the Long Island Sound, under cover of darkness. The battle itself was a humiliating defeat for Washington. But, the loss also revealed an insight that was key to the ultimate American success: The Continental Army could afford to lose battles; but if it remained an Army-in-being, the British couldn't declare victory. Washington rightly surmised that, as long as the enemy couldn't win the war, they would eventually lose."

DARPA's POSYDON Could Revolutionize Naval WarfareBy Kris Osborn, Scout Warrior: “Using underwater acoustic signals, a surface buoy, beacon or “node,” and GPS signals in a coordinated fashion, the Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation (POSYDON) is able to quickly relay location coordinates from undersea drones on patrol to command and control systems on board a ship or submarine.”

Medium Extended Air Defence System (MEADS)From Army-Technology: “The medium extended air defence system (MEADS) was developed to replace Hawk and Patriot systems worldwide. MEADS will protect manoeuvring forces and fixed installations against attacks from current and next-generation tactical ballistic missiles, low and high-altitude cruise missiles, remotely piloted vehicles, and manoeuvring fixed-wing aircraft and rotary wing aircraft. The total system is designed for rapid deployment and tactical mobility.”